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Posts Tagged ‘David Eldridge’

The Best Theatre of 2022

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 4, 2023| 2 Comments »

The first full year of theatre going since 2019 and I saw 129 shows in the 42 weeks I was in the UK (my travels resumed too!). A good indication of its quality was that a third made my long list.

BEST NEW PLAY – PATRIOTS at the Almeida Theatre & MIDDLE at the NT’s Dorfman Theatre

It was a particularly good year for new plays, perhaps because playwrights had more time during lockdown to craft and perfect their work. There were twenty contenders and after much deliberation 7 rose above the rest. Nell Leyshon’s Folk at Hampstead, about the song collecting of Cecil Sharp, proved a real treat, as did Marvellous, the life-affirming inaugural offering @sohoplace about the extraordinary Neil Baldwin. At the National, an adaptation of Sheriden’s restoration comedy The Rivals, Jack Absolute Flies Again, was by far the funniest new play, whilst down the road at the Young Vic The Collaboration was a fascinating examination of an unlikely relationship between two artists – Warhol & Basquiat. Prima Facie was a great play exposing the broken legal system of trials for sexual offences, but it was really all about the sensational star performance from Jodie Comer. It was two plays about relationships – Peter Morgan’s Patriots, about Berezovsky, the kingmaker of both Putin & Abramovitch and David Eldridge’s Middle about the divergence of a couple in mid-life, that stood out most.

BEST REVIVAL – The Crucible & The Corn Is Green at the NT and Handbagged at The Kiln Theatre

I couldn’t choose between the three, and there were six other very good contenders too. I’ve seen quite a few productions of The Crucible, but few had the intensity of the NT’s revival in the Olivier. Next door in the Lyttelton, what made The Corn is Green was the addition of singing by the miners, fully anchoring the play in Wales. I was surprised how much Handbagged, about the relationship between Thatcher and the Queen, resonated twelve years on and how clever and funny it still was.

The six ‘bubbling under’ were the return of Jerusalem after 13 years as good if not better than before, two Shakespeare’s at the NT – Much Ado About Nothing and Othello, Age of Rage – a Greek Tragedy ‘mash up’ from Amsterdam, a timely revival of Roy Williams’ Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads in Chichester and To Kill A Mockingbird, transferred from Broadway to The West End.

BEST NEW MUSICAL – TAMMY FAYE at The Almeida

Every year is a lean year for new musicals these days, but this new musical had it all – great book, lyrics and music, given an audacious production with as fine a set of performances as you could hope for.

The Band’s Visit, about an Egyptian band lost in Israel, was a joy, understated and full of hope, which could have won in any other year. I loved Newsies too, but more as a dance showcase than a musical. The others on the long list were Mandela at the Young Vic, Local Hero in Chichester, Bonnie & Clyde in the West End and The Lion, though I was late to that party.

BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL – Spring Awakening at The Almeida, Crazy for You in Chichester and Billy Elliott at Curve Leicester.

A leaner than usual year for musical revivals; covid related costs and delays I suspect, but these three matched (Billy) or bettered (Crazy For You and Spring Awakening) all previous productions. Four of the seven contenders were in the regions (the other two being a terrific revival of Gypsy in Buxton and Terry Gilliam’s Into the Woods exiled to Bath). As much as I enjoyed Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club and Oklahoma at the Young Vic, they didn’t match these three.

So that’s it for another year. Here’s to as much, if not more, in 2023.

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Middle

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , on June 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I’ve rarely left the theatre of late feeling totally satisfied by a new play. Until this. The pandemic has made the wait five rather than three years for the second in David Eldridge’s relationships trilogy, but it was well worth the wait. Hopefully, it won’t take as long for the third – End? – as I for one am already full of anticipation.

Like Beginning before it, it’s a two-hander, played in real time over 100 minutes during a sleepless night in Maggie & Gary’s Essex home. Gary’s trajectory from market boy to City slicker is like many of his generation from Essex. It’s enabled him to afford the six-bedroom home, private prep school for daughter Annabel and holidays abroad, at a price. Maggie was late to motherhood, after problems conceiving, and has only recently returned to her career. This should be a success story in so many ways.

It’s a lot more than this personal story, though. It covers universal themes, things so many experience in midlife, many important and prescient issues, as Maggie & Gary’s marriage unravels before your eyes. They include the cost of success and the price (in fulfilment) of motherhood. I found myself connected and emotionally engaged with these, which seem to have become even more urgent during the pandemic, with many people focusing so much more on the work-life balance. If only Maggie and Gary had.

Though they are both regulars on our TV screens, we don’t see enough of Clare Rushbrook and Daniel Ryan on stage. Clare has already provided a cinematic highlight this year with Ali & Ava, now she provides a stage highlight to match it, a woman late to motherhood struggling to bond with her child and achieve the fulfilment her career once provided. Daniel is on an equally captivating roller coaster ride from frustration and despair to helplessness and rage with a character that’s high on ambition, but low on emotional intelligence. These are such visceral, committed performances you can’t help but empathise with their characters. The same creative team – director Polly Findlay and designer Fly Davis – handle the material with the same sensitivity.

You could never have the same intense, deeply rewarding experience as this in any other art form. It’s why I go to the theatre. You’d be completely bonkers to miss it.

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Beginning

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , on October 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

We appear to be in a golden age of new plays. Bartlett, Bean, Butterworth, Graham, Kirkwood & Raine have all delivered gems this year and now David Aldridge joins them. His is on a much more intimate scale, but it’s as captivating as any of the others.

It’s the fag end of a party, the early hours of Sunday morning, and the host Laura and guest Danny, who she doesn’t really know, are the last two standing. There is clearly a mutual attraction. He’s damaged – deserted, divorced, estranged and lonely – and socially clumsy. She’s successful and independent, but with no family, also lonely, and too frank, forward and direct for Danny. They play out the difficult first 100 minutes of their relationship in real time.

Though it’s mostly about loneliness and relationships, there are a whole load of other themes including father’s rights, desperation for children, impersonal modern dating methods and more. It’s voyeuristic to watch, but it’s not uncomfortable. The characters are superbly well drawn and the performances of Justine Mitchell and Sam Troughton are stunning. Troughton in particular perfectly captures the complex cocktail of emotions and vulnerability of Danny. Polly Findlay’s direction is totally in harmony with the writing and Fly Davis’ uber-realistic design anchors it.

I’ve never thought Eldridge’s work as consistent as other playwrights, but he has produced gems before, notably In Basildon, maybe when he’s writing from experience. Somewhat ironically, he produced the least plausible play about middle-class life, Knot of the Heart at the Almeida, and has now produced the most plausible! This is an enthralling experience, particularly welcome at the NT.

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Holy Warriors

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2014| 2 Comments »

It’s great to see writers given the opportunity to tackle big issues on a Shakespearean scale at The Globe. Here David Eldridge tackles the middle east, starting with the third crusade, or holy war, towards the end of the 12th century and including references to things that happened just last week.

The first half shows the third crusade, with Saladin leading the Muslims and Richard the Lionheart leading the Christians. We move between Saladin’s camp and Richard’s and meet family and loyal companions. The attitudes and views are as contemporary as the language Eldridge uses. I suppose the point is that it’s been like this now for a thousand years, but it’s a bit laboured. It ends with the arrival of a couple of characters that suggest we’re about to move forward hundreds of years.

In the first part of the second half we are in the 20th century and figures key to the more recent history of the middle east step forward to tell us their story of the conflict in modern times – Ben Gurion, Golda Meir & Begin, Sadat and Carter, Bush & Blair (but puzzlingly no Rabin, Barak, Arafat or Clinton, crucial to the situation in the 90’s). This bit is like a whistle-stop history lesson, watched in disbelief by Richard the Lionheart and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. It’s followed by the third part, which picks up the crusade where we left it, except that they’re in modern battle dress and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a modern war – which I suppose is the point.

It’s a deeply complex issue which I felt was oversimplified. All it really tells us is it’s being going on forever and it’s mostly our fault. I didn’t feel I learnt much and I’m not sure the issue gets the depth or respect it deserves. What it really needs is one of those all-day Tricycle play cycles, like The Great Game. This didn’t really work for me, but I do think there’s a play(s) to be written and I admire the ambition if not the outcome.

James Dacre’s staging is heavy on spectacle, with lots of battles and bangs. Mike Britton’s period costumes in the first half are terrific and his slightly raked painted giant disc floor is excellent. This was only the second performance, so fluffed lines are to be forgiven; otherwise I thought it was well performed, with a particularly charismatic turn as Richard by John Hopkins. There’s a lot of music, particularly chanting, but too many ‘pitching & tuning’ issues dilute its impact, and the switch to rock music as we move to modern times is a bit heavy-handed.

This is very different territory for David Eldridge. He calls his play ‘a fantasia on the third crusade and the history of violent struggle in the holy lands’ and makes comparisons with the work of Caryl Churchill and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. This is nowhere near as successful as the latter, but somewhere in here there is a good play crying to get out. I suspect it will improve in performance before opening on Wednesday but the play’s structure and content is set, for now at least.

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In Basildon

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

It’s hard to believe that this excellent new play comes from the same pen as my 2011 Turkey of the Year, Knot of the Heart! This uber-realistic and authentic piece is a huge contrast with the other’s implausibility. As playwright David Eldridge hails from the area in which it is set, I suspect this time he’s writing from experience – and it shows.

Len is dying of prostate cancer and we’re in the living room of his home (in Basildon, obviously) where a bedside vigil is in progress – sister Doreen (who lives with Len) & her son Barry (for whom Len was a father figure) and Len’s best mate Ken; neighbour Pam is on tea duty. We’re soon joined by estranged sister Maureen who won’t talk to her sister (and vice versa) directly. The family feud is revealed but not understood. Doreen is further upset when it becomes obvious that Ken knows more about Len’s wishes than she does.

We move on to the wake, joined by Barry’s wife Jackie and Maureen’s daughter Shelley & her boyfriend. Shelley is the one member of the family who escaped to university. She became a teacher and returned to the East End where the family originated and where she now lives with boyfriend Tom, who’s own escape was in the opposite direction from his investment banker dad. The family feud is further fueled by the reading of a letter from Len laying out the highlights of his will, but we still don’t understand its origin. We finally flash back 18 years where the circumstances of the rift are at last revealed.

This is a very believable family story, but the play has at least two more layers. It shows the late 20th century exodus from the East End via inner Essex towns like Romford to places like Basildon even further away. We glimpse the reasons for the moves and attitudes that accompanied them. Furthermore, it explores how the political changes of the last 30 years have impacted these particular working class families. I lived and worked in Essex for 18 years during this period and it oozes authenticity. The family story also resonates with me!

The theatre has been reconfigured for Dominic Cooke’s pitch perfect production, with the audience on two sides and two levels. Though this does provide a bit of a bear pit for the family exchanges (well, from where I was sitting anyway), I’m not sure it was worth the trouble and expense.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Linda Bassett and Ruth Sheen are both terrific as the sisters, both in estrangement and closeness. Lee Ross brilliantly conveys the complex set of emotions Barry experiences – living with the family feud, his hinted financial troubles and Jackie’s more overt desperation for her own home and child (superbly played by Debbie Chasen). Peter Wight’s conveys that special relationship of ‘the best mate’ with a nice touch of old man letch.

It owes something to Mike Leigh (and there are a couple of Leigh regulars in the cast and a reference to his most famous play), but it’s an original, well structured and deeply rewarding play which will undoubtedly feature in the list of 2012’s best and another must-see at the Royal Court.

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The Knot of the Heart – the first half

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , on March 20, 2011| 5 Comments »

Though I don’t doubt middle class addiction is a real issue, this play and its characters don’t seem in the slightest bit believable.

TV presenter Lucy is on the slippery slope of addiction watched but her surprisingly sympathetic mother Barbara, who herself shows signs of alcoholism. There is a sister, though it’s not clear why her character is there at all. All of the men are played by the same actor – and your point is?

This is all played out as ‘designer theatre’ on a slick revolve that takes us relentlessly from one location to another and one room to the next (designer Peter McKintosh). Lucy and her mother are deeply unsympathetic characters who just whine on and on in an enormously irritating way; if they had seemed more real I would have wanted to get out of my seat, give them a slap and tell them to get a grip. For some reason – writing (David Eldridge) and direction (Michael Attenborough), I suppose – normally fine actors like Lisa Dillon and Margot Leicester provide us with flat cardboard characterisations.

I’m sure it improved in the second half – they often do! – but I just couldn’t face another 70 minutes of this implausible story full of unbelievable characters. I can’t help but contrast this example of a poor new play with Mogadishu, a great new play at the Lyric Hammersmith. This one’s a premiere league dud.

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